SAN ANTONIO — The NBA has announced the nominees for the 2021-22 NBA Most Improved Player Award and San Antonio Spurs' Dejounte Murray is among the finalists.
Murray will have stiff competition as the other nominees named are Darius Garland of the Cleveland Cavaliers and Ja Morant of the Memphis Grizzlies.
The 2021-22 season was filled with many milestones for the point guard.
He was named to the 2022 All-Star Game, averaged career highs in points (21.1), rebounds (8.3), assists (9.2) assists and in steals (2.0) steals.
He was a walking triple-double machine and emerged at the team's leader this past season even showing it following the team's Play-In loss to the Pelicans
"We take the good and the bad. You learn from it. I think, towards the end, we fought, but they had a lot of guys play well," Murray said. "Obviously, we had guys play well, but we also had guys not shoot well, starting with myself."
After the season concluded in the play-in, he tweeted he will be looking to grow his game before the start of the new season. Continual improvement has been a hallmark of his NBA career, posting better numbers every single season. Every time he's asked what he wants to get better at, he simply says, "everything."
TNT will announce the winner of each award during its coverage of the 2022 NBA Playoffs.
Murray led the NBA in steals and steals per game, and could be considered for one of the league's two All-Defense teams.
Twitter: @KENS5, @JeffGSpursKENS5